We had an additional $220 from MIL that we added into the budget for this two week pay cycle. It was reimbursement stuff so wasn't added into the tithe. But it does throw the numbers off a little bit, so I had to make a note of it on my budget spreadsheet. I always try to do that when this sort of thing comes up.

$327.36 Tithe
_400.00 Grocery Envelope
_300.00 Medical Fund
__75.00 Household Envelope
1000.00 Citi (Autopays and a lot of crap we shouldn't have bought last month)
__61.74 Life Insurance DH
__60.46 Life Insurance Me
__50.00 Blow Money Adults
1000.00 Monster Mom Loan Payment
_120.00 Allowaces Kids
_125.75 License plate tabs for the van
---------
3520.31 Total Money Out

$327.36 Tithe
_400.00 Utilities
_400.00 Grocery Envelope
_500.00 Medical Fund
__75.00 Household Envelope
_280.00 Monthly Family Chiropractic Plan
_108.91 Internet
__36.00 Garbage Fund
_100.00 Car Insurance Fund
__50.00 Car Maintenance Envelope
_100.00 Gas Money
_100.00 Blow Money Adults
_120.00 Allowances Kids
_200.00 Clothing Envelope
__81.00 Truck License Tabs
_395.00 Credit Card
---------------
3273.27 Total Money Out

I went and did the two week grocery shop, but I also stocked up on a lot of chicken. I went to four stores in one day and boy is my body telling me I overdid it today. Although it might also have to do with some weeding last night.

Safeway has boneless skinless thighs (and breasts) on sale for $2.99 a pound in my area. I was going to get some bone in skin on chicken elsewhere for 88 cents a pound, but they were all out of it and didn't have more in the back, which was annoying.

It is cheaper to do it myself, but my hands are bugging me and I didn't want to deal with pulling skins off and working the bone out while keeping the most meat possible intact. Since $2.99 is my buy price for boneless/skinless chicken thighs, I bought 8 of them. They were around 4 pounds each. So today we will haul out the Food Saver and divide them up into 8 piece packages and take most of them out to the deep freezer in the garage.

My first stop was Trader Joe's and I spent $96.51. I bought:

2 boxes maple pecan granola cereal
1 chive and onion cream cheese
4 frozen chicken fettuccine Alfredo
4 frozen mac and cheese dinners
2 bags flour tortillas
1 box fish nuggets
3 bags garlic naan bread
1 box peanut butter granola bars
1 bag (of six) large hamburger buns (no soy!)
2 packs Co-Jack cheese sticks
1 4 lb bag organic gold potatoes
1 5 lb bag organic russet potatoes
4 boxes chocolate truffle bars (no soy!)
1 organic Caesar salad kit (they were out of plain romaine)
1 bag organic baby spinach

Our next stop was Fred Meyer were I spent $50.47. I bought:

2 Simply Strawberry lemonades (digital coupon)
2 Simply lemonades (digital coupon)
4 boxes organic fettuccine noodles (cheaper than normal ones on sale)
2 bags English muffins
2 bunches organic green onions
2 organic red onions
6 organic yellow onions
1 bunch organic bananas
4 containers Pringles (on sale 2 for $3)
4 organic lemons
2 organic limes
1 large container cubed watermelon

Then we hustled across the street to Whole Foods where I bought only 4 items, but the meat was expensive. I spent $41.37 and I bought:

1/2 pound of uncured pepperoni
1 pound of uncured sopresatta
1 box organic strawberries
4 strawberry mochi

After that we went to Safeway and spent $145.16 and bought:

4 boxes of organic spaghetti noodles
1 box of organic lasagna noodles
1 big bag of ice
1 1/2 gallon of milk
1 package organic white cheddar cheese slices
1 box of Vital Farms pastured eggs
1 10 count box of cupcakes
8 packages of boneless skinless chicken thighs
2 pounds of wild cod (on sale for $5/lb)
1 pound of Dietz and Watson deli roast beef
1 pound of Dietz and Waston deli homestyle roasted turkey

The total on groceries spent is $333.51. That leaves me with $66.49 in the grocery budget for next week if I need to pick up milk, tortillas, or more deli meat.

I should not have to buy any more noodles for a couple of months as the noodle cupboard is fully stocked. I also don't need to buy any spaghetti sauce for a few months as I finished stocking that up the previous pay period. We eat pasta once a week, because it is fast and easy in the Instant Pot. I have learned how to do penné, bow ties, rotini, spaghetti, and fettuccine all in the Instant Pot and have been pretty pleased with the results.

I like having a three month supply of everything in the house in case of emergency situations. Then of course my extended pantry for six months of food which got us through those 10 months of unemployment a while back. My ultimate goal is a year's supply, but that takes a lot of time to build.

I need to make up a big batch of meatballs again for the freezer and then it will be even easier to just pour and dump the whole thing. I have to get DS to shred the parmesan and romano for me, though. That is the hardest part for my hands. We like it at powder consistency, otherwise I'd use the food processor or salad shooter, but the little cheese mill is all we have for it.

I am thinking about getting an electric cheese mill, but it is around $100. We do eat a lot of powdered cheese, though, and the only way to get it without the anti-caking agents is to do it ourselves. So it might be worth it. I haven't spent the majority of my allowance in ages so there is quite a bit built up in the allowance envelope. Also we have $100 from MIL that we could use to buy it from our anniversary in March. We hadn't figured out what we wanted, though I was thinking about an electric flatbread press for making tortillas and pita bread easier. I need to watch more videos of people using them and see if they are really worth the price. Does anyone here use one?

I finally went and got my hair cut. The haircut and style was $59, plus I gave her a $15 tip. Then I bought some Moroccan Oil Intense Curl Cream which was $37.96 (with the tax for the haircut and cream added in). So a total of $110.96. The hair cream is wonderful, it holds the curl without it getting crunchy like most styling products. My hair is super soft with it. It's a fairly large bottle, too. I figure it will last a few months with my hair being so short now.

The last time I went was in April of last year, so yes, it is expensive but I want a really good cut that is easy to maintain as it grown out and I've found the cheap hair salons do not do the same job at all and they don't know how to cut curly hair. She took off twelve inches. It's pretty short, for me, cut to an inch below my chin, at least when it is dry. When it is wet it is about two inches longer because I have curly hair. I am very happy about the style. It is cute, but simple.

After that I went to Penney's and bought 2 bath towels, 2 hand towels (which are big enough to dry my shorter hair with now), and 2 wash clothes. I am going to slowly start replacing our towels by buying like this every couple of weeks. The first ones are mine, because my towels are the oldest and in the worst shape. They are cheap WalMart towels and I wanted something a little better in quality. We all have towels in different colors. I am turquoise, DH is green, DS is royal blue, and DD is purple. My new ones are mostly turquoise with some white stripes and some very thin blue stripes. I spent $45.60.

Then after that I went to Walgreens and bought a box of Colorsilk hair dye. They were on sale for just under $5 a box. I'm going for dark auburn, which is pretty much what my hair color was when I was young, except it had gold and ash streaks in it, too. Now that my hair is short the idea of dying it is not so overwhelming. Most of what I have left after the cut is grey and white where the ash streaks used to be. A bit of the auburn is still there, but not much, and none of the gold. I also bought a magazine, a concealer stick, some sunscreen (the pricey sensitive skin stuff), and a giant bottle of water (99 cents for 34 oz). I spent $24.57.

So it was quite a spendy day, but my envelopes were well-funded and everything was planned for.

DS and I also did some more work in the garden, sifting the soil in one of the beds that has the morning glory roots in it. We are now about 1/4 of the way through it. I am finding a ton of worms, which is a great indicator of soil health. We are also catching some horsetail in our sifting process. DS also got some more sod pulled up, about two wagon loads worth. We didn't work for too long. I am being careful not to overdo it and to make sure DS doesn't overdo it either, but my garden muscles are getting stronger and so am I. Soon I will be able to go a lot longer and not have to worry so much about it.

$327.36 Tithe
_400.00 Grocery Envelope
_400.00 Medical Fund
__75.00 Household Envelope
_441.41 Autopays (Citi)
_721.87 Additional Medical (Citi)
__61.74 Life Insurance DH
__60.46 Life Insurance Me
_100.00 Blow Money Adults
_500.00 Monster Mom Loan
__70.00 Allowances Kids
----------
3157.84 Total Money Out

I have been searching for five years for a new comforter in the teal to turquoise range and today I finally found it. It's teal and a Queen, not a King, but that's okay. I put it sideways on the bed anyhow and I don't tuck it because of the bed rails. I have never, not once, found a comforter for a King bed that I have liked, but I have found queen ones, so I'm used to that. They simply didn't come in the larger size. I used my allowance money as I have barely touched it for the last six months. While it could have come out of the household budget, this is a want, not a need, so I used my allowance. I still have enough left over to purchase an upgrade for my video editing software.

It was $69.95 plus tax. We found it at the Big K in Burlington. Our Kmart shut down and this is the nearest one to us. I was not overly impressed with this store. It is a larger store, but not so nicely laid out and it didn't seem to even have as much stuff as our old one did.

I also purchased some socks with the money from the clothing envelope as they have the type of socks I like that don't slip in my shoes, Athletech. I got a pack of 10, so I should be good again for a while. The socks were $8.99 plus tax.

And then I purchased a stainless steel frying pan. The copper skillet that came with the induction cooktop is already having food stick. We have been very careful to only use a sponge, too. That irritates me immensely. We had one before that did the same thing. I hate copper pans and if it hadn't come with it, I'd never have had one again.

And while I like cooking in cast iron, our big pan is quite heavy and the stainless steel is easier to lift and clean. I can still use the smaller cast iron pans easily. I got a 12 inch 5 quart saute pan with a lid. You can only use pans that a magnet will stick to on the cooktop. But now I should be good. This came out of the household envelope and cost $16.99.

Tax was $7.99, but I had some points left from before our Kmart closed down so had $1.97 taken off the final balance which was $101.99. Tax came out of the clothing budget just to make life easier. And no, I didn't make three separate purchases, I did one, but then reimbursed the envelopes that needed to be, because sometimes using cash can be a pain and I do whatever makes it work best.

So today was spending, but everything was funded, and that's the way I like it.

I raised the grocery budget this week just because we are going down to the farm on Saturday and I will be buying ground beef and bacon. I may not have actually needed to do that as I won't be buying much meat this week otherwise, but if I don't spend it I will put it back in the checking account.

I also bumped the medical fund up to $500 as we had a bill come in that we were starting to think would never arrive. It was from October. I don't think I will need to repeat that next payday, though.

$327.36 Tithe
_400.00 Utilities
_500.00 Grocery Envelope
_500.00 Medical Fund
__75.00 Household Fund
_108.91 Internet
__36.00 Garbage Fund (every 2 month bill)
_100.00 Car Insurance Fund
__50.00 Car Maintenance Envelope
_100.00 Gas Money
_100.00 Blow Money Adults
_105.00 Allowances
_100.00 Clothing Envelope
_100.00 Computer Fund
_500.00 Monster Mom Loan Payment
-----------
3102.27 Total Money Out

DH had to pick up some pure maple syrup at Costco last night, so that cost $11.59. That seems to have gone down a good bit since the last time we bought syrup. I think it was around $15 last time, so that was a nice surprise.

The last two days were kind of painful. I think it was the storm. I am sensitive to changes in barometric pressure. I swell up when rainstorms come in. I also get headaches. It's weird. But the sun is back out today and also last night was my second shot of Enbrel and my joints are feeling better again, except my left hip, which is out and my chiropractor is on vacation. He won't be back until the 10th.

It is possible that I may be someone who has to take two shots of Enbrel a week, but I imagine it is too soon to tell. But the joint flare could also have been the medicine wearing off. I don't know. It's too soon to tell on that as well. No nausea or vomiting with this second shot, but I took some Zantac last night to try to prevent it, and it seems like it did.

Tomorrow we have another rain storm coming in, so if my joints hurt again, then I'll assume it was the pressure and not the medicine wearing off, since I just took the shot.

I have been maintaining my weight loss, but have not been very good at losing anymore. I haven't really been trying this week, but I need to get my act together, because I still have a lot to lose. We are going to get our gym membership signed up for this weekend and I can get back in the pool again. I am going to take it easy and only walk in the pool to start, not try to swim laps or use the water weights. I need to build up my stamina. Then maybe after a week or so, I might take a class.

They have Aqua Zumba one day a week and water aerobics the rest of the week days and Saturday. I will start with Aqua Zumba as it is easier on the joints and more fun. I will have to get up earlier for the water aerobics if I decide to start that, but Aqua Zumba is at 10:30. They do have two night time water aerobics classes if I just can't get up early enough. But they are at 6 p.m. and I imagine quite crowded at that time of day.

DS will be using the work out machines and weights while I am in the pool. He isn't really keen on water aerobics, though he did enjoy them when he was younger. I think he is self-conscious to be in a pool full of women, even if most of them are middle aged to old age.

I don't really know if DH or DD will use the membership or not. DD says she will to use the pool, but she is never able to get up, so I don't see it really happening unless she changes her sleeping schedule. I'm not going to drive there twice a day. It is a bad traffic situation later in the day and hard to get in and out.

I think I am going to have to accelerate savings for the computer fund. My computer keeps restarting itself. Every day, sometimes twice a day and it is getting super annoying. It keeps saying my computer has an error and has to shut down. Ugh. I am going to try a few things to see if I can't find the error, but it may not be salvageable.

This computer has quite a few things wrong with it that they never seemed to be able to fix 100% and now it no longer has a service contract, so I just can't see throwing money at it when I can throw money at a new one. I am not sure I will get a laptop this time, though. I think I may just get a desktop instead. We'll see. With my current phone, I don't really need a laptop to take with me anymore. I only write at home these days.

Although I do like taking the laptop into the bathroom while I am taking a long bath and playing a movie, so there's that. I guess I'll figure that out once I have the money saved up. I want to save instead of 18 months same as cash, but will do that if this thing goes belly up before the money is ready.